


Silent, And Soft, And Slow

by orphan_account



Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Domestic Fluff, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-11-06
Updated: 2013-11-06
Packaged: 2017-12-31 15:38:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,369
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1033390
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Grantaire convinces Enjolras to take a day off.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Silent, And Soft, And Slow

**Author's Note:**

> This is just plotless fluff involving snow and pancakes.

The bitter nip in the air was the first sign that there was something different about today. Enjolras, who produced body heat like a furnace no matter what the temperature was outside, slept straight through the chill, but Grantaire eventually woke enough to lift his head and crack an eye at the window. The sky was only just beginning to lighten, but the barest hint of dawn was all that was needed to see the layer of dimly glittering white that lay over the buildings across the street.

He laid his head down again, his eyes picking out the tiny snowflakes as they whirled through the air past the window. Now that he was aware of the snow, the chill in the air seemed even more pronounced, and Grantaire shuffled closer to the man on the other side of his bed. Enjolras didn’t stir at all except to sling an arm over Grantaire’s waist and reflexively pull him closer. Grantaire pressed the tip of his cold nose into the hollow of Enjolras’s throat and fell back to dreaming.

⁂

When he woke for the second time that morning the sun had risen and Enjolras was sitting up in bed, directing a look of such dismay at the window that Grantaire was laughing even before he’d properly woken up.

“Something wrong?” he inquired, his tone making it clear that he knew exactly what was wrong. He snaked a hand up Enjolras’s side beneath his t-shirt, unable to resist.

“It’s  _snowing_ ,” Enjolras said, sounding perfectly affronted. Up until that moment Grantaire hadn’t even known it was possible to take the weather so personally.

“It is,” Grantaire agreed mildly, his fingertips following the curve of Enjolras’s ribcage around to his back. He pressed gently into the tense muscles he found there, wishing idly that Enjolras would ever stop working long enough to consent to a massage. “I like snow, myself.”

Enjolras looked down at him with fond exasperation. “Of course you do. I hate it. Why wouldn’t you adore it?”

“I’ve never understood how anyone can hate snow,” Grantaire said. He reluctantly gave up his exploration of Enjolras’s skin, deciding it was a bad angle and if he couldn’t do it justice from under the covers then it would just have to wait.

“It’s disruptive,” Enjolras pointed out disapprovingly. “And it’s  _cold_.”

“Come down here and let me warm you up,” Grantaire suggested mischievously.

Enjolras tried and failed to look stern at that. “You know I can’t. I have to study—”

Grantaire groaned loudly, drowning out the rest of the sentence. “It’s almost Christmas and it’s the first snow of the year. No one is studying today, Enjolras. No one. I guarantee it.”

“I am,” Enjolras insisted, because he was nothing if not stubborn.

Sensing a challenge and finding himself unable to resist, Grantaire braved the cold enough to prop himself up on one elbow, and fixed Enjolras with a gimlet stare. “What will it take to convince you to take this whole day off?”

He imagined he could see the blood draining from Enjolras’s face at the mere idea. “You can’t be serious.”

“Everyone’s got a price. Come on. I’ll do anything.”

That gave Enjolras pause. He eyed him appraisingly, and Grantaire did not miss the smile he was fighting. “Anything?” he repeated thoughtfully.

“Anything. I’ll even stop ripping your arguments apart at meetings if you want.”

Enjolras rolled his eyes. “I doubt you could manage that for more than a day. And anyway,” he added, “I wouldn’t want you to.  You’re infuriatingly clever, even if I don’t like the conclusions you come to.”

Grantaire knew he was grinning a really dopey grin, but he couldn’t seem to correct it. Even if he couldn’t quite bring himself to believe what he was saying, praise from Enjolras was still better than any drug he’d ever tried.

As if he could hear his thoughts, Enjolras carded his fingers affectionately through Grantaire’s hair and said, “I’ll take the day off work if you take the day off  _your_  vices.”

Grantaire’s heart leapt. He hadn’t really expected Enjolras to cave. “Define ‘vices’.”

“Cigarettes, and whatever it is you have that suspiciously bong-shaped vase for,” Enjolras elaborated. This time last year alcohol would have been on that list, but today there was no need to mention it; there wasn’t a drop in the house, hadn’t been for almost six months now.

“Done,” Grantaire said quickly, forgetting the cold and sitting bolt upright in his excitement. “Are you serious? That’s all?”

Enjolras raised his eyebrows, but he was smiling. “I haven’t seen you go without smoking for a solid twenty-four hours since…ever.”

Grantaire slid cautiously from the bed, shivering as the cold air hit his skin, and shrugged. “I like cigarettes. I like  _you_  a whole lot more.”

Enjolras snorted. “How romantic.”

“It is, actually,” Grantaire informed him cheerfully. He had to admit Enjolras had been right to complain about the temperature—it was  _freezing_. He picked his way quickly through the pile of clothes that eternally graced his bedroom floor until he found a pair of jeans that didn’t smell weird and weren’t obviously dirty.

“So, what do you want to do? Wait—don’t answer that. You always have terrible ideas about what to do for fun. I’m not convinced you know the meaning of the word.  _I_  will choose what we’re doing today.”

Enjolras was out of bed and already dressed in the clothes he’d worn yesterday, which where mysteriously wrinkle-free and probably smelled like sunshine and daisies. Grantaire got temporarily distracted from his search for a sweatshirt, preferring to stand barefoot on the hardwood floor staring like an idiot at the impossibly gorgeous creature wandering around his bedroom. He seemed desperately out of place, but Grantaire wanted to keep him there forever.

“Why are you looking at me like that?” Enjolras didn’t exactly look self-conscious—Grantaire wasn’t sure that was even possible—but the uncertainty in his tone was jarring enough.

Grantaire shook himself. “Sorry. You’re just—really fucking distracting.”

“Oh.” He colored slightly and smiled. “I thought you were supposed to be coming up with something fun for us to do. You know, since my ideas are so terrible.”

“Right. I was. And then you had to go and  _walk_ , like the distracting bastard you are. You know what it does to me when you walk. Move. Breathe. Exist. Whatever. Don’t look at me like that. It’s not my fault you roll out of bed looking like a sun god.”

Enjolras regarded him patiently until he finally paused in his rambling to draw breath, and then interjected: “We need breakfast.”

“Breakfast! Yes. I take it back, not all of your ideas are terrible.”

“Thank you,” Enjolras said dryly.

“Pancakes,” Grantaire declared with growing enthusiasm. “I’m making pancakes.”

“An important part of any balanced diet.”

Grantaire finally found a semi-clean hoodie on the floor and pulled it on. “That’s rich coming from the guy who literally forgets to eat if his friends don’t make him. Come on. You haven’t lived until you’ve had my pancakes.”

Enjolras obediently followed Grantaire into the kitchen, which was if possible even colder than the bedroom had been.

“What makes your pancakes so special?” Enjolras asked, leaning on the counter and watching as Grantaire moved in a practiced flurry of motion around the kitchen, assembling ingredients as he went. He was still barefoot, but if it bothered him he gave no sign of it. The small window over the sink showed that the snow was still falling, and despite himself Enjolras was glad Grantaire had come up with that stupid bargain.

“My pancakes are the best,” Grantaire said modestly. “It is known.”

“Well, now I’m expecting some pretty impressive pancakes.”

“Nothing but the best for my b—” Grantaire caught himself before he could finish, his hands suddenly still, deliberately avoiding looking at Enjolras. He wasn’t even sure what he’d been going to say. Baby?  _Boyfriend_?

He cleared his throat loudly and turned away, taking too long to find the butter, giving himself time to recover. Enjolras’s silence was increasingly difficult to ignore, though, so Grantaire sighed and turned around with an apology on the tip of his tongue.

“Look, you know I’m not so good with that whole brain-mouth filter thing—”

He was silenced mid-sentence, because Enjolras only let him get that far before he calmly walked around the counter, took Grantaire’s face in his hands, and kissed him. It was sweet. Grantaire promptly lost his train of thought.

Enjolras broke the kiss and rested his forehead against Grantaire’s for a few seconds before he dropped his hands from his face and reluctantly inched back out of his personal space.

“I’m sorry,” Grantaire heard himself saying to Enjolras’s shoes.

“Please don’t apologize,” Enjolras said firmly. “You don’t need to be sorry for that. I liked it. I wish you’d say things like that more often.”

Grantaire looked up, startled. “What?” he asked stupidly.

Apparently Enjolras was having an uncharacteristically hard time expressing himself, because what came out of his mouth next broke every rule of grammar, syntax, and basic logic that Grantaire had ever known.

“I think I’d like that. I mean, I definitely would. Like that. Sorry, it’s actually really hard to talk sense when you’re this close to me. Um. I had a point.”

Grantaire was at a total loss. “Are you feeling alright?”

“I had a point,” Enjolras repeated stubbornly, “and the point is that I want you to be my boyfriend.”

Grantaire knew he was just staring, wide-eyed, but he couldn’t seem to stop. “You what?”

Enjolras crossed his arms. “You heard me.”

Grantaire forced himself to blink. “I heard you. I just couldn’t make any sense of what you said.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Those blue eyes were starting to burn with a familiar annoyance, which Grantaire found oddly reassuring. If Enjolras was getting pissed off with him, it probably meant that this wasn’t a dream or a hallucination.

“Have you  _met_  me? I’m—I’m not boyfriend material. Especially not for you.”

Enjolras looked positively offended. “What do you mean, especially not for me?”

“You’re—Christ, Enjolras, you could have anyone. You’ve got your shit together and you’re beautiful and passionate and you’re going to be so successful at whatever it is you end up choosing to do. I’m not like that. I’m a fuckup, everybody knows that.”

“Everybody knows  _shit_ ,” Enjolras growled, and Grantaire fell silent, stunned by his vehemence. “You are not a fuckup. You sell yourself so short and it’s so frustrating sometimes.”

Grantaire was blushing. “I’m not—”

Enjolras silenced him with a fierce look. “You’re kind, and generous, and don’t get me wrong, you can be caustic but you rarely speak harshly to anyone who doesn’t deserve it. You’re one of the most intelligent people I know. You’re such a talented artist, and you have such an eye for beautiful things—do you have any idea how crazy it makes me that you think  _I’m_  beautiful? Because when you say it, it’s not a line, it’s not some trite compliment. You make me feel so—so _blessed_  to know you.”

Grantaire had his hands pressed to his mouth and he wasn’t sure when he’d started crying, or precisely  _why_  he was crying, but his ears were ringing and he felt a little lightheaded. He wanted to argue with him, to explain to him why he was wrong, but he also wanted to run and hide, and in the end he was paralyzed by indecision.

“Now, will you please tell me yes or no?” Enjolras asked softly.

Grantaire took a few seconds to compose himself enough to speak. When he did, his voice still came out shaky and thick with tears, but at least the words were intelligible: “When the hell have I ever been capable of telling you no?”

Enjolras smiled weakly. “In that case I’m asking the wrong question. What do _you_  want?”

“You really want this?” Grantaire shot back, avoiding the question. “ _Me_?”

“God,  _yes_. Don’t you know how I feel about you, Grantaire? I don’t want anyone else. I want you to myself. Officially. Mine.”

Grantaire shivered, and it had nothing to do with the snow-chilled air. “There is absolutely no danger of me being interested in anyone else but you. You know that.”

“Then what’s the problem?” Enjolras asked, moving forward to slip his arms around Grantaire’s waist. Grantaire automatically lifted his arms in response to loosely encircle Enjolras’s neck. “Indulge my possessive streak.”

Grantaire nearly let out an undignified squeak at the idea of Enjolras being _possessive_  of him. He restrained himself. Just. Instead he said, “Alright,” as if it was the simplest thing in the world, as if it made  _sense_.

Enjolras’s grin was almost blinding. “Good.” And then he was kissing him, and Grantaire knew he’d been arguing something but he couldn’t quite remember what it had been when Enjolras’s mouth was moving against his and Enjolras’s fingers were caught up in his hair and holy Christ he’d just agreed to be his _boyfriend_.

“I promised you breakfast,” he remembered belatedly when they finally broke apart.

“You promised me the  _best_  pancakes,” Enjolras agreed, smiling. He looked so good when he smiled like that, content and unabashedly self-satisfied. Grantaire was losing his train of thought again just looking at him, so he tore his eyes away from his face and looked around for the long-forgotten butter.

“Nothing but the best for my boyfriend,” he declared.

The snowfall slowed but never ceased while Grantaire served pancakes so good that Enjolras was forced to agree that they were, quite literally,  _the_  best. Grantaire’s proud smile caught him off guard; he’d never seen him look like that, satisfied and triumphant and just a little bit smug. It made him want to learn all the ways that particular expression could be coaxed onto Grantaire’s face, what he could do to make him feel that pride in himself that was so often lacking.

He’d been staring too long.

“Why are you looking at me like that?” Grantaire asked, echoing Enjolras’s question from earlier that morning.

Enjolras just shrugged, smiling at him because he couldn’t seem to stop. 


End file.
